B-Factory Site at SLAC Approved by DOE Secretary O'Leary

October 8, 1993

By Lynn Yarris, LCYarris@lbl.gov

"Today, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and my science
advisor, Jack Gibbons, have given me their recommendations for
the B-factory. After much study and serious comparisons of all
proposals, the recommendation is that the B-factory go to the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)."

With those words, President Clinton at a press conference in
San Francisco on Monday (Oct. 4), launched a $230 million
accelerator project which began some five years ago as the idea
of LBL deputy director Pier Oddone and is now a major
collaboration involving LBL, SLAC, and the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL).

B-factory is the popular name given to Oddone's idea for
converting SLAC's Positron-Electron Project collider into an
"asymmetric" collider --one in which the two colliding beams of
particles are not of equal energies. The purpose of this "PEP-
II" collider is to produce copious quantities of B mesons,
particles containing a "bottom" quark, the fifth of the six
quarks believed to be the fundamental constituents of matter.

Measuring the lifetimes of B mesons and their antiparticle
counterparts offers scientists their best opportunity to study
differences between matter and antimatter, particularly the
phenomenon known as CP violation. This phenomenon is widely
believed to be responsible for the fact that during the first
split seconds of the Big Bang, the process of creation favored
matter over antimatter.

The U.S. Department of Energy included $36 million in its
budget proposal for FY94 to begin construction of a B-factory.
However, a site was not announced because after the LBL-SLAC-LLNL
proposal was made, Cornell University put forth a rival proposal
to upgrade their Electron Storage Ring.

Secretary O'Leary, who made the selection, explained her
decision in a statement released after the President's
announcement.

"The Department of Energy has a much higher margin of
confidence in the ability of the Stanford proposal to meet the
project's extremely high performance requirements, as well as to
meet its proposed cost and schedule."

Said Oddone, in a statement following the President's
announcement, "I am delighted that Secretary O'Leary has decided
to put the B-factory in the Bay Area. I want to thank her, the
President, the Department of Energy, the National Science
Foundation, and the many colleagues who worked together during
the review of the two proposals to provide a technically sound
basis for this decision.

"I also want to thank the California Commission on Science
and Technology, the Governor's office, and our California
legislators in Washington, who have all worked together to ensure
that our proposal received a fair hearing. This decision gives
our three Bay Area laboratories the opportunity to build a world
class accelerator and international facility, and continue in the
tradition of important discoveries in particle physics started
more than six decades ago by E. O. Lawrence. This tradition has
been brilliantly maintained at LBL, at SLAC, and at LLNL
throughout the intervening years.

"I would also like to salute our colleagues at Cornell
University. They have a great laboratory and have given us some
very tough competition. We hope that they will join us in
building and using this exciting new accelerator."

In making his announcement, President Clinton said that for
too long the Federal government has been "denurturing the
scientific genius" that resides in California and is a critical
component of the state's economy. He included the B-factory as a
part of his administration's strategy for reviving California's
economy which he said was vital to the economy of the nation.

"I wish you well with the B-factory!" the President
exclaimed.

It is estimated that the B-factory will cost $170 million
over five years. In addition, a new particle detector will be
built at an estimated cost of about $60 million. With
Congressional funding approval, construction could begin in later
1993 and operations could begin in 1998.